Small country – big environmental muscles

STATUS | ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS

By Nadia Louise Kristensen

At Denmark’s geographical centre lies a small island – one that the whole world is watching. Even Time Magazine has visited Samsø, as the island is called, and has named one of Samsø’s energy-engaged residents a genuine climate hero. The reason why Time Magazine made the long trip to Samsø is because the island has been the main character in a special energy story, which continues to inspire other Danish municipalities to think in renewable energy terms. Not just for the sake of the environment, but also because it pays.

In April, US President Barack Obama referred to Denmark as a model for the US regarding renewable energy. And it is to a great extent the general public and the municipalities one needs to look at to explain why Denmark is in the vanguard of the fight against climate change. Here Samsø also furnishes an excellent example.

“Popular commitment has resulted in the creation of an entire industry around clean energy and energy saving in Denmark.

And if you look at Danish industry today, it is remarkable how many companies have a positive attitude to the environment and energy saving. They use it as a competition parameter,” says Jørgen Goul Andersen, professor in political sociology at Aalborg University in Denmark.

Over the last 30 years, Professor Andersen has monitored Danish attitudes to environmental issues. Even back in the 1970s, environment and energy were topics of discussion in Danish living rooms. It was a subject almost as hotly debated as unemployment. A Eurobarometer (regular surveys commissioned by the EC since 1973) showed that at the end of the 1970s, Denmark was among the most environmentally-conscious countries in Europe.

According to Jørgen Goul Andersen, the interest was created by initiatives such as car-free Sundays during the oil crisis and grassroots movements, supported by a number of political initiatives. Denmark was for example the first country in the world to establish an actual environment ministry.

“The fact that environmental efforts were institutionalised at an early stage, has had the effect of maintaining focus on the issues,” says Jørgen Goul Andersen.

A lengthy series of private initiatives showed the way forward for renewable energy. And they still do.

This is where Samsø comes into the picture again. Because the island has become self-sufficient in electricity from wind energy in 10 years and also generates 70% of the energy it needs for heating. And local ownership has been an important part of the comprehensive project.

“We said that the wind turbines had to be co-operatively based, and all parties had to be included. That has been one of the most important lessons in this process. Local embeddedness is important. If you own the turbine yourself, you don’t complain about having it in your back yard,” says Jesper Kjems, head of communication at Samsø Energy Academy, which accumulates and communicates knowledge on renewable energy. The academy is partly financed by Samsø municipality.

There are many parties in the project.

The municipality owns wind turbines. Farmers own wind turbines and sell straw for heating. Tradesmen sell wood burning stoves and solar panels, and insulate and lay pipes for district heating. Ordinary citizens own shares in power plants and wind turbines. Hotels enjoy trade from eco-tourists who visit outside the season – attracted to Samsø by the Energy Academy. The local electrician services the onshore wind turbines and childminders, instead of using cars, use a traditional Danish load-carrying tricycle called a Christiana bike for everything from transporting kids to getting the shopping home.”

Local embeddedness will also be central to the next projects, because Samsø does not want to stop here. But what the project will be – that is for the islanders to decide.

“We are in the process of calling in people to ask them what the next project should be. Should Samsø for instance be 100 percent organic in 10 years or a 100 per cent recycling society? The most important thing is that we start on what is important for people,” says Jesper Kjems.

The seed for Samsø’s energy adventure was actually sown by a crisis. In 1995, the local abattoir closed and many were made redundant as the abattoir was a relatively large workplace. In many other parts of Denmark there are similar stories of local communities being amputated by company closures. But such crises have also stimulated involvement. In that way the story of Samsø is similar to that of many other outskirt areas in Denmark.

See video on fd.denmark.dk

Samsø’s childminders tranport children in Christiania bikes (top). Good grazing around the solar heating panels on Samsø. Photos: Energiakademiet.dk

A renewable energy town

Under the slogan ’Join the fossil fuel free future: make the green economy grow’, Frederikshavn municipality aims to fully convert to renewable energy in just six years.

Frederikshavn is situated in the most northerly part of Denmark and has been an enterprising seaport for many years. But in the 1990s, just like Samsø, Frederikshavn was affected by the closure of the town’s major workplaces. Here it was the shipyards that went under.

“The citizens of Frederikshavn have been through a tremendous transformation in the occupational field, so they are open to trying new things,” says the mayor of Frederikshavn municipality, Erik Sørensen.

The closure of the shipyards triggered many projects – initially they had nothing to do with climate – but they did in 2006 when Erik Sørensen was presented with the idea of switching a Danish town over to renewable energy.

“I saw the opportunity for us to become part of a new energy adventure in Denmark. Just look at the wind turbines. Of course people can keep on talking and holding conferences, but if you don’t do something, nothing will happen,” says Sørensen on the motivation for launching into the ambitious energy project.

In 2007, the city council decided that Frederikshavn should be a sort of model town, showing that with existing technology and in a relatively short period, the municipality could free itself fully from fossil fuels.

The objective is to make Frederikshavn municipality completely independent of fossil fuels by 2015 – including in the transport area.

“Every second, the western world spends 1 million Danish kroner [EUR 135,000] on oil. Although oil prices have just dropped, we know that prices will increase in the long term. We think we can use the money better for local energy production. When we switch over our energy production to being independent of fossil fuels, we will also create growth in the local society. So we think that environment equates to good economics,” says Mikael Kau, who is director of Energi City Frederikshavn, a foundation that was created to plan and implement the project.

The groundbreaking part of the project is that the municipality is also including the transport sector, because the technologies are still at a fledgling stage. They are experimenting with biogas, electric cars and fuel cell hybrid cars.

“Naturally the city council cannot force the private citizen to buy an electric or hybrid car, but we will ensure that the technology and fuels are available so that they have the choice,” says Mikael Kau.

When the project has been realised, it should be transferable to other towns in Denmark and, for that matter, to the rest of the world.

An 8,000 square metre solar heating plant outside Frederikshavn is part of the ’renewable energy town’ plan. Photo: Frederikshavn Kommune

From unemployment to hydrogen adventure

On Lolland, Europe´s first full-scale hydrogen society is emerging.

The island of Lolland is an area of Denmark which has been hard hit by unemployment in recent decades, especially after the shipyard in the main town of Nakskov had to close in 1987. Since then Lolland has been most known as a place where poor Danes went to get an inexpensive house and their social benefits.

“The deeply unfortunate thing for Lolland is the lack of knowledge of what is happening there. People still think it is an underdeveloped sugar beet growing area where single women with shabby children move to. That chapter is closed,” says the mayor of Lolland municipality, Stig Vestergaard.

Changing Lolland’s reputation and attracting companies and well-educated people are just some of the reasons why Lolland has launched a comprehensive campaign for a better environment, but to the mayor, it is also about responsibility.

 “I think everybody can and should be part of making a difference regarding the planet we inhabit. I very seriously believe that everybody has a duty to make a difference – especially all of us who are decision-makers,” says Vestergaard.

Nowhere else in the world is so much renewable energy being generated per capita as on Lolland. Electricity consumption is exclusively covered by local renewable energy, which also covers 75 per cent of heat consumption. And there is still enough wind energy for exports.

Lolland has become a global display case for groundbreaking energy projects. The island is dotted with wind turbines and biofuel plants. And what is probably most revolutionary is the future full-scale hydrogen community.

So far, the challenge with wind energy has been that you can’t easily store it. Sometimes more electricity is produced than the grid can take, which can lead to wind turbines being stopped for a period, with the result that the environmentally-friendly and freely accessible energy source – wind – is not exploited. This is where hydrogen comes into the picture. Because by combining wind energy with hydrogen and fuel cells, the surplus energy that wind turbines sometimes generate can be stored. And the owners of the wind turbines also avoid having to sell energy at very low prices because there is too much electricity on the market in relation to demand.

In September 2008, the first household in the village of Vestenskov on Lolland was connected to a hydrogen network, which provides the household with electricity and heat based on renewable energy sources, hydrogen and fuel cells. There are currently five houses connected, which obtain their heat and electricity exclusively from renewable energy sources. The vision is that the system will comprise 35 households by autumn 2009 – which will make Vestenskov the first hydrogen society in Europe.

“With strongly fluctuating oil prices and the end of Denmark’s oil and gas adventure in the North Sea, hydrogen technology will become one of the future energy systems which can help replace our consumption of fossil fuels,” says Jesper Krogh Jensen, who is chief engineer at Baltic Sea Solutions, a strategic partner with Lolland municipality in a variety of climate projects in the area.

Vestenskov hydrogen society has already attracted international attention and is regularly visited by research organisations and companies that would like to take a closer look at the technology. And Lolland’s mayor also hopes that it can attract research environments to the area.

“We won’t save the world with this project, but if we show that we can get small local communities to create and use energy in this way instead of being dependent on oil, then we are making a difference,” says Stig Vestergaard.

http://www.lolland.ctf.dk

An energetic rural community

In Thisted, the main town in the Danish region of Thy, they are focusing strongly on the environment. To attract new resourceful inhabitants to the area, and because it is good for the economy.

Way out west in Denmark, where the merciless western wind howls, a number of local people meet to talk about how they can exploit its limitless energy and other local resources such as biomass and water for the good of the environment, not to mention their wallets. Because it has become a sport to be good to Mother Nature. The inhabitants of Thisted municipality emit an average 8.6 tons of CO2 annually, while the per capita annual average for Denmark as a whole is 12 tons.

Thisted municipality has created the framework for a local initiative ’Energetic Citizens of Thy’, and makes sure that those who have already engaged in making a difference for the environment attend the public meetings and spread knowledge of the climate-related initiatives that pay.

So far there have been three public meetings where energy and environment have been at the centre of debate.

“We want to strengthen our climate-related initiatives, make it more attractive to live in rural districts, and strengthen the business community. And who can do that? Those who live there,” says Jan Krogh, head of business and development in Thisted Municipality.

The municipality has made its very own model for good investments:

“In order for the efforts to succeed there must be local involvement, the best technology must be available, and it must give results on the bottom line,” says Otto Lægaard, manager of the ’Energetic Citizens of Thy’ project.

The municipality has 45,000 inhabitants, 235 wind turbines and the first geothermal plant in Denmark.

Thisted is already 100 per cent self-sufficient in electricity generated from renewable energy, and 85 per cent of its heating comes from non-fossil fuels.

These fine results led to the municipality being awarded ’The European Solar Prize’ two years ago because of its advancements in renewable energy. But Thisted wants to do even more.

At two of the public meetings, it was proposed to start locally producing household wind turbines, which can be installed in back gardens. The project can create both renewable energy and local jobs.

One of the energetic citizens of Thy has set up a small innovation centre, where he brings together those individuals who would like to further develop the project.

“Before the meetings, they didn’t know that they had some of the same ideas, or that there was someone who had a factory area where they could actually make some prototypes of the wind turbines and test them,” says Otto Lægaard.